Microsoft Excel In-house Training Checklist

Which topics should be covered
The obvious answer to this question may seem to be “the version that we are currently using”. However, because of the significant difference between Excel 2007 and previous versions, if you are currently using Excel 2003 but plan to upgrade within the next year or so, it is definitely worth making sure you upgrade before getting your staff trained.
If your staff are trained on an older version of Excel and then have their software upgraded to 2007, the differences are so significant that many of them will need retraining!
Class sizes
One of the main benefits offered by on-site training courses is that you can focus on those topics which are most relevant to your organisations. A good technique is to ask the company providing the training for a list of topics they cover on their standard courses then to provide them with a guide as to which features you feel are important, less important or can be omitted all together.
One feature that you should almost never omit in an Excel training course is formulas and functions. Functions are the lifeblood of Microsoft Excel. They allow the program to carry out complex calculations and produce useful results in a variety of different areas including statistics, engineering and the financial arena. Be sure to give the training company a good idea of the type of data your people work with and the information they need to obtain. This will enable the trainer to include coverage of functions which can help increase your productivity and get the most out of Excel.
Who should attend
The obvious answer to this question may seem to be “the version that we are currently using”. However, because of the significant difference between Excel 2007 and previous versions, if you are currently using Excel 2003 but plan to upgrade within the next year or so, it is definitely worth making sure you upgrade before getting your staff trained.
Class sizes
The obvious answer to this question may seem to be “the version that we are currently using”. However, because of the significant difference between Excel 2007 and previous versions, if you are currently using Excel 2003 but plan to upgrade within the next year or so, it is definitely worth making sure you upgrade before getting your staff trained.
Ideally, training courses should be attended by users with a similar level of experience and with similar requirements. If you have a mixture of skills levels, it is best to split the training into separate sessions to cater for people’s different needs. It is also important to limit attendance to those people who can attend for the entire duration of the training. Having delegates nip in and out of a training session is disruptive and doesn’t really benefit anyone.